Kill Your Idols: Quentin Tarantino

Young auteur has a great debut with Reservoir Dogs, displaying a flair not just for dialogue, but also filmmaker (unlike, say, Kevin Smith). Pulp Fiction changed the rules of moviemaking, opened up a modern audience for non-linear storytelling and a different approach to a soundtrack.

Jackie Brown maybe was a bit of a snore (even if Del Amo is The Greatest Mall Ever!), more of a straightforward film.

Six years later, Kill Bill, advertised loudly as "The FOURTH film by Quentin Tarantino!" I regard it as one film, and his masterpiece. The ultimate exemplar of his homages (derivative work), interesting use of music (mining the same vein for every film), interesting dialogue (often worthless banter), and well-choreographed chaos (wanton violence).
Grindhouse was OK for what it was, but it wasn't special. Inglorious Basterds was good, but it was clear now that Tarantino was using his established formula as a crutch. Suddenly, I no longer wanted the soundtracks every time he made a movie. I no longer came away thinking I had seen a bunch of disparate influences distilled into something that had a uniqueness to it. With overwrought characters like Pitt's guy and certain "That's a BINGO!!!" lines, it felt like he was deliberately trying to be crowd pleasing instead of trusting the material. He seemed to be beholden to what we expect, rather than what he thought would be creative.

Haven't seen Django yet, but hear it's great. But years ago, I see a tarantino flick on opening day, regardless of how busy I am. The trailers for this one look like a director who is now trying too hard.

Django Unchained was one of the three movies to get me to a theater in 2012. He still has the power over me. And it's great. And it's not much at all like his previous work, aside from a few nods toward Inglourious Basterds thanks to Christoph Waltz's tremendousness.

I enjoyed Django but the difference between it and Basterds is that QT took 10 years to write Basterds, and he never would have made it without Waltz agreeing to play Landa. He wanted Django to be the same "revenge" thing but he just rushed everything.